


might've took the long way

by snsk



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff, M/M, boys in looove, life in the closet, otp: still the one, still the one he kisses goodnight, that's not a tag is it, three years in less than 10k
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-30 23:11:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1024514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snsk/pseuds/snsk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing is, you meet the love of your life at sixteen years old, in a toilet that's so quiet compared to the shouting mess of noise outside. </p><p>// Basically: three years of Harry and Louis, told in alternating points of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	might've took the long way

**Author's Note:**

> idk i think i should disclaim stuff first no i don't own them nor do i claim to know exactly what's going on with them

:::

H: The thing is, you meet the love of your life at sixteen years old, in a toilet that's so quiet compared to the shouting mess of noise outside. The thing is, he grins at you and you lose your train of thought (oops) and he's got such bright blue eyes and he says your name (hi) and it sits so pretty on his tongue.

The thing is, you both become international popstars a few months later.

:::

L: You push him back against the bed (mine please still mine? please) and he reaches up to wind his arms around your neck, pull you down for a kiss, sloppy and searching and you travel down to suck at his neck hard and he lets you, biting out bits of your name (mine thank god still mine)

:::

H: It's the boy with the bright blue eyes who's onstage with you, who's wrapping his legs around yours and your fate is sealed, easy as that and you don't even realise. You hug him tight, stumble backwards, overwhelmed with thankfulness and euphoria and the smell of his clothes (soft lemony detergent) and!

If smell was a soundtrack, this scent would be the swelling, opening score.

:::

L: "I want," you pant and he nods immediately, and yes, you want. You reach over, practiced, for the lube in the first drawer, the condoms with it. You think, suddenly, that you want this without protection, but. Can't. Not now.

You banish the thought for the moment, because he's looking at you like you're the only person alive. And you need this, whatever comes later. You push a finger into him, probably a bit harder than necessary, on the tail-end of the protection thought. He arches his back, doesn't say anything, but you immediately relent (seventeen and flushed so pretty with three fingers inside him, biting his lip in agony-ecstasy) and your second finger is much gentler, slow until he begs, "Lou-" and again, "-please!" and you say: "yes," and gives him what he needs.

There's a time to be angry, but it's not now. 

(seventeen and looking up at you so trustingly and you twist your fingers and he gasps in shock)

:::

H: Falling in love is not an option for you; it is predetermined. Destined.

 It feels like that anyway, the way he curls his fingers in your hair, the way the spaces between his fingers fit yours exactly. Like it was pre-planned by Somebody Else, and you send a quiet prayer to whoever wrote this script, the one where these fools fell in love. You feel absolutely giddy with it, with the rush of X Factor performances, with the touches becoming something decidedly more-than-playful, with intent making itself known, with him sneaking into your bed after everyone's asleep and tangling your limbs together. 

You feel drunk, all day, every night. You're both drunk off each other, it's like nothing else, like stars in your bloodstream, fireworks under your skin.

:::

L: It's times like this you remember your first kiss, when you're inside him with his legs wrapped sloppily around you he's reaching up again to draw you down to him again.

:::

H: Your first time is. Everybody knows your first time isn't meant to be perfect, that it's painful most times and awkward a lot and you'll look back and laugh years later, but your first time is - well. 

(well)

It's him murmuring your name as you creep into his room late at night, rain pounding heavy on the roof. 

You're still not used to having him in a different room; you live together now, but you used to slide into his bunk easy, centimeters away, when you were having a nightmare, and sometimes now you blink your eyes open and you don't see him and you panic a bit. (a lot)

So he's saying: "Harry," sort of sleep-tired but not sleepy yet, that kind of awareness between wakefulness and not. And you don't say anything, just crawl under the covers and press your face to his neck. You lick it. He laughs.

"Kitten," he says, and you sort of lick his pulse point again, but slower now, with intent. And he calls you that again, but his voice is rougher, now. 

(i want, please)

You climb on top of him and start kissing him, trying to show him without actually telling him. You've gotten each other off before, of course, grinding and handjobs and blowing each other in the toilets after a performance, but tonight -

(i want)

and you don't know how to go about telling him, and he seems perfectly content just kissing you deep and lazy but good, slow with the beat of the rain, and it's so nice but it's not enough. You pull back and you say, "Lou - Lou. I want -"

And because he's the other half of your soul, or something terrifyingly perfect like that, he understands immediately, looks at you, searching, and asks, "You sure?" eyes (so blue) wide and you nod and he nods, too, and.

Your first time, it's the burn and stretch of the first intrusion, as slick with lube as he tries to make it. It's also the pause as he says: "Haz? Babe, we don't have-" and your hand in his hair, a silent wait, as you try to regain your bearings through the discomfort. Your first time is how the stretch and slide gets easier, replaced with something approximating fullness, completion. Your first time is when he twists his fingers (just so) and you cry out, sharp, in pleasure. Your first time is him braced over you, entering you slowly, and you looking up at him, unable to believe this boy is yours. Your first time is you incoherent and begging, sounding out pieces of his name and want and need.

Your first time is. Something that no one will be able to take from you, not even the both of you.

:::

L: When it's over, he lies draped on top of you, and you're both panting. It's always this good, it's always stupid how it's this good.

(not good enough, apparently)

You push at him, sudden. "Get off," you mutter, but still sex-wrecked for it not to be hostile. "Sweaty."

He goes to get a cloth, cleans you up. Pats himself down. You watch him, heavy-lidded.

He gets into bed with you and turns off the light again. In the dark, cleaned up and drifting, with his arm over your waist, it's easy to be less angry.

You say: "Haz?" a few minutes later, when you find yourself not asleep yet. 

His breathing had been getting slower, deeper, but he answers when he could have ignored you. (always) "Yeah?"

"D'you remember that time," you say, tiredness making your speech slower, "when we went back to the beach, few weeks after the video shoot?"

His face is pressed against your shoulder, so you can feel him smile against your skin. "Yeah." A few moments later, "Good day."

You'd brought a picnic basket, and Zayn had brought three tubes of sunscreen. Without the pressure of making their first ever (!) video, the day had been quiet, the waves had been lapping. The other boys had been sitting slightly apart, finishing off the sandwiches. Usually, you'd have been joining in the scrum, but right then you'd been too comfortable, too content, to fight over the last one.

He'd snuggled up to you as you lay down in the sand.

"I've always wanted a beach wedding," he'd said, out of nowhere.

You'd grinned over his curls. "Yeah? Proper old sap, you are. During sunset, too? With the soft strains of Elvis in the background?"

"Shut it," he'd said, without any heat. "Wouldn't it be nice?"

You'd both looked at the endless ocean, spread open like the world seemed to be at the time.

"It would, babe," you'd allowed.

Now, he doesn't say anything, but he seems to be waiting.

 (aren't we always)

"Yeah," you say, "yeah, nice day." You close your eyes defiantly, ordering sleep to arrive. "Night, Haz."

He exhales against your shoulderblade. "Night."

:::

H: Try to - tone it down a little, they say. You both nod, you can do that, if you absolutely have to. For the band. (for just a while)

 You try to keep your hands off each other, forget. Again, and again. You're called in for another talk. More a reprimand. Something about appearances, and demographics. You try a little harder this time. 

You don't stop yourself from staring at him. You can't seem to be able to. You never could.

You don't really like to think about this part, the slow unraveling of the future you'd envisioned. You'd been sixteen. You'd been stupid.

:::

L: They throw around words like fake, and girl, and publicity, because people have started Questioning, and they haven't found satisfactory answers to their questions. (there aren't any)

You hesitate, for a bit. You look at him, and his face is open and trusting. He trusts you to make this decision for the both of you. 

You think about the band's first hit album, you think about how lit up he looks on stage. You think about how Liam had said the other day, looking at the screaming, adoring crowd, I think we could actually-- and you think about the First Performance, the hours after, the only light in the room coming from his phone as he'd thumbed through twitter for hours.

You make your decision. So many months later, and you still don't know whether it was the right one. But you make your decision.

:::

H: The sunlight's streaming in as you struggle awake to the sound of your phone ringing. You take a moment to register how you're arranged: his arm pressed sweatily to your side, your leg slung over his. You're loath to untangle yourself from this warm damp organism you've both become, but the phone's really fucking annoying. You press answer without looking.

"Yeah," you say. "Yeah, I'll. Yeah. I know. Um, say thirty? Yeah, hold on."

By the time you're done, he's blinking up at you, hair tousled and soft, fingers uncurling as his mouth stretches open, lazy. You want nothing more than to fit yourself back into his arms. 

You've loved him since you were sixteen. You're almost twenty. You're almost twenty, and you don't think you'll ever be able to properly stop.

"Who waszat?" he asks, in the middle of a yawn. His voice is still fond, sleep addled enough not to want to remember.

You tense. "Um, radio interview," you say. You don't want to- "Y'know, for breakfast." 

You don't need to say anything else. You can see his eyes start to narrow.

:::

L: Eleanor's great, and everything, given the circumstances, and he hates her, he doesn't even try. She hates him back, on principle, after the fourth or fifth rebuffing, which for Harry Styles is mainly radio silence and short too-polite answers, since you're the one who fills in the spaces with cutting remarks for him, and you can't now. Eleanor really hasn't done anything wrong, but it feels so weird, not loathing something that's hurting him.

"Babe, at least-" you try, once.

"I agreed to it," he says, quiet. "I don't have to like it. I don't have to like her."

You can't think of anything else to say. This is Harry Styles, after all. He's sunshiney kindness and always-find-the-good-in-others and delighted dimple at absolutely nothing in particular, and if he doesn't like her, he doesn't like her. You can't blame him. 

(you blame yourself)

You shoot off a tweet, the day before you go... public. Always in my heart, you type. Yours sincerely (always yours), Louis.

He doesn't reply to it, instead retweets something about a broken heart that everyone takes as a joke, as a sort of unofficial end to Larry Stylinson. You give a cynical little grin, looking at the tweets. They have no idea. 

:::

H: The bullshit tweet. Ah.

Actually, the actual occurrence is not as bad for you as it is for a lot of other people: for him, for the fans and the fandom, for Niall, strangely enough, because later he keeps coming up to you and offering dumb things: an ice cream. A hug. A game of FIFA. 

When it happens, you're not directly informed, as often happens with your management. When it happens, you're actually showering, so when you come out, hair still wet and curling from the steam, he comes up to you and wraps you close, you in your towel, him with the phone still in his hand.

He says, "I love you, Harry." Says it again, "I love you, you know?" Reinstates it, just in case you haven't heard: "You're mine, I love you, I've never, I will never. Baby, you're- I love you."

"I know, Lou," you say. You wonder abstractly what it is, how bad is the thing they've gone and done now. You gently prise the phone from his hand, open it up. 

Twitter is blowing up. 

You lean into him again. The water is cool, drying on your skin. He doesn't fuck you that night, he lets his tongue dip inside you in an endless, ecstatic wave of pleasure that leaves you begging and writhing and senseless. He sucks you off slow and he tells you how much he loves you every time he pulls off, and then he swallows you whole again.

Later, there are repercussions. You're unable to properly look through twitter for a week, all the hate and the "get over it!! he's said it's not real!!" You get to see more pap photos, him and -- her. You take small satisfaction in the fact that he isn't even trying to look happy, then realise you're becoming a bad, terrible person.

There are repercussions later, but right now he's making you tea after sex, and you curl your toes up to accommodate his presence on the sofa, and you say: "You too."

"Y'what now, babe?" he says, lifting your feet onto his lap.

"I love you too," you say, and it seems too little, for how much you're feeling, how much you've always felt ever since he came about and lit up the sun in your chest. "A lot," is all you can say to summarize that. "Like, a lot."

His eyes crinkle. "Yeah, cool," he tells you. "I'm okay with that, I think."

:::

L: "Uh-huh," you say. "No, go, who'm I to keep you waiting." 

You draw the covers off, it's going to be sunny, it's a humid day. Sweat is drying on your skin.

He hasn't gotten up off the bed yet. You can't bear to see the lovely long line of him. (still mine? probably not) "No, I promised him this, like, weeks ago," he says.

"That's fine. I didn't- I don't need an explanation." You're rootling in a drawer, looking for your socks, for some reason.

He lives here, officially. Except, you've been fighting a lot, so he sleeps over at other people's a lot too. Where he never sleeps, is his supposed own house, the one that's been "renovating" for going on a year now. You suspect he hates the place.

Officially, and unofficially, you live together. Officially, and unofficially, you don't, really. Nowadays, especially.

"Lou," he says.

"Harry," you say. "You're going to be late." Then, because you can't help it, you're an asshole, you're still forming bruises from his fingers from last night, you miss the sixteen year old who'd looked up at you like you knew the answers, you say: "Wouldn't want to keep Nick waiting."

You hear him exhale. Yeah, you're doing this again. 

You locate the socks you're looking for. They're stripey and knobbly and you have no idea why you wanted them in the first place.

:::

H: There's a pause, before you say, "Don't."

"Don't what." He's still not looking at you, but in the drawer. "I'm not doing anything. You should get dressed."

"Are we doing this again?" you say, tired.

"No, we aren't, 'cause you've got an interview with Nick." His voice is acid, all thorny silver.

"It was already scheduled-"

"You don't need to-"

"But you are," you snap, and he turns around. "Are you ever going to-"

"Not today," he tells you. 

:::

L: There's a memory that sticks out from 2012, it's one that involves him and you and the boys, in a bookshop in Brisbane.

None of you are avid readers, or anything. None of you quite know what you're doing here. It had looked interesting, from the outside, quiet and cosy and Harry had said, "Hey-" and you had humored him because it had been such a nice day, no mob or screaming, just one or two polite pictures. 

(also, you can't say no, not when you've been saying no for so long) 

You watch him thumb through the paperbacks. He pulls one out.

"To teach my life this transposition to  
This difficult and unaccustomed key!-  
The room is as you left it; your last touch-  
A thoughtless pressure, knowing not itself  
As saintly, hallows now each simple thing. Hallows and glorifies."

His voice is soft, but the words ache, inside you, somehow, somewhere bone-deep.

"That's depressing," you interrupt. "It's too much like goodbye."

He shrugs. "It's pretty." But he flicks to another page, anyway.

"The rest of the day was quite easy.  
I did all my jobs on my list  
And enjoyed them and had some time over.  
I love you. I’m glad I exist."

He smiles at you. His eyes are bright.

"Better," you decide. You reach out to touch. "I'm glad I exist, too."

:::

H: "We were on a break, Louis," and oh, you're tired of repeating this, "You gave me permission-"

"I didn't expect you to turn around instantly and run into his waiting dick!" he snarls.

"I didn't run anywhere! You wouldn't even talk to me, we kept fighting, I thought-"

"I said, give me time." He doesn't shout, but his voice is loud and sharp and angry, so angry. "I said, I wasn't ready. You kept pressuring me, don't you get it? You couldn't just try to understand how I was feeling?"

"I was waiting! And you let me, Louis, you suggested, break, you suggested, seeing other people, you allowed me to go out and you fucking said "be my guest," you let me go and-" your voice is ragged, you can't quite breathe, "tattoos can be removed, I thought you didn't even want to wait any longer. I thought you didn't even want us any longer."

You can see himself stop whatever it is that was going to come out of his mouth. He says, quieter, "Harry-"

You shake your head. "'m gonna," you say. "See you later." It's mumbled.

You've pulled on your pants and leave your shirt unbuttoned. You leave. He doesn't come after you. It'd break your heart to stay. It's wrecking your soul to leave.

:::

L: Fuck, but you hate Nick Grimshaw. You rue the day Harry came to you, and said, Lou, guess who I hung out with today. Lou, he's cool, you've got to meet him. You hate his hair and his clothes and his little asides at you and his fucking want for your boy, you hate how he got to have a piece of him. You hate how you were stupid enough to let him.

You hate him, but it's lessened slightly when he calls you, when you're eating lunch with Zayn in sunglasses and not talking, because thank god for Zayn who knows when you'll burst into tears if you open your mouth.

You deleted his number, so you say, "Hello?"

"He said your name," Nick says by way of greeting.

"What?" you say.

"Your name," Nick repeats drily. "During sex. Bit of a moodkiller."

You flinch at 'sex,' you see Zayn look up and take notice. "That shit only happens in movies, Grimshaw, it's a bit late to play matchmaker now, don't you think?"

"Alright," Nick acquiesces. "Not during sex. But get off your bloody high horse. You were on a break, and I've wanted him for years."

"Thanks for the newsflash-"

"Listen the fuck up. This is true: after, he said your name, over and over again. He kept saying your name, and crying. He - I hate you, y'know?"

Louis knows.

"But he doesn't. It's, this is nothing. But you're making him so unhappy. I'm not trying to play matchmaker. I'm making you see you're the biggest idiots around."

There's a pause. You don't answer. You stare at your uneaten fish and chips, and you don't answer.

"I do care about him, you know." When he's being all- sincere, or whatever he's trying to be now, Nick's voice gets terribly proper, all upper-class. "Couldn't give less of a shit about you."

You bite your lip. Across the table, Zayn's eyes are worried.

"Likewise," you say, and press end call, and that's probably the closest you and Nick Grimshaw will ever get to a civil conversation.

:::

H: The tattoos are his idea, actually. He'd always said, no, but he'd always run his fingers and tongue over the ink on your skin. After one of your first proper fights about the whole - tell the world thing, he says, biting lightly at your arm, the G: "I want one."

"Really?" you ask.

He nods. "I want one." 

You understand it's a sort of compromise. You'll take it.

He gets a cage, you get the birds.

You get the ship, he gets the compass.

He gets the careful, curling script, you get the butterfly beneath it.

You get the i can't change, he gets the commas bracketing it.

He gets the Oops!. You get the Hi.

:::

L: He's sitting alone, off to the side of the stage, staring off into the empty seats. You bump his shoulder as you sit down next to him. 

"Oops," you say, willing him to understand.

Of course he does. "Hi," he tells you immediately, but it's cautious.

"I do still love you a lot a lot, you know," you tell him, abrupt. "I'm sorry if you ever thought anything different."

You're so, so sorry. For a lot of things. Just not this one, never this one, looking up at you with red-rimmed green eyes, hair a trainwreck you just want to run your hands through.

"I love you, and I want to marry you someday, and I do want to tell the world. Just. You have to understand. It's nothing to do with how much I love you. Just not yet."

He swings his legs. "I think I do," he says, lower and slower than usual. "I think - I've been thinking, and all I could come up with is that I don't want you to let me go again, please. I need you to - not. That's all. Please. I don't think, you remember that night? The first one? I don't want to have to waste time looking for you again. I've been thinking, Lou, and this is fucked up, and I miss you when you're right next to me-" he shakes his head, sucks in a breath, touches your cheek, still careful, cautious. "-and I love you incredibly, and I miss you so much." 

You nod. There are a lot of things you both need to say, and you will say them, but right now your throat is choked up and you just want to reach for your boy.

You do. You regret ever hesitating.

You'll fix this. You promise yourself this.

:::

H: You see each other almost every day, but every time he touches you, it's like coming back home.

Now, with his face buried in your neck, it's been a helluva long journey, one that isn't over yet, but here's the fact you've almost forgotten these past few weeks and months and dark lonely nights - the fact is, you're taking home with you.

:::

L: Your first kiss goes like this.

H: Your first kiss is - it is something else.

L: There's nobody else awake, you think you're the only one traveling through the murky hours between night and day. You don't make yourself a tea, that requires a lot more awakeness than you currently have. You just want to. You just want to sit, or. You miss Harry. It's stupid. You saw him two hours ago. You contemplate waking him up. You decide he needs his sleep. Still. You miss him.

H: You're not sure what wakes you, but years later, you're so glad it did. You pad through the house, past the rooms, past through where the kitchen light's on, over to where he's sitting on the veranda-thingy, curled up in a hoodie and beanie and socks, his pajama pants not quite reaching his ankles. You almost don't want to go over, you want to stare at him like this for a long, long time. But you go over. You always go over to him.

L: "Kitten," you say, delighted, but the moon's washed away most of the manic front that makes up your days and it just comes out sincere, surprised. "I missed you," you say. 

H: "I'm here," you tell him. You snuggle up beside him. He's, he's so warm.

L: You already ache with love for him, it's like there's always been a space in your soul the color of his eyes and the shape of his dimples, and it scares you - at least, it should, but this boy is so close, so how can it?

H: Dreamily, you say: "I think I knew you, a long time ago."

L: There's a moonlit pause, and you ask: "How long?"

H: "Centuries," you answer, tilting your head back against his arm to look up at the stars. "Other lifetimes. I knew you years ago. I knew you aeons ago." You're not rambling. It's the truth.

L: You smile. "Yeah?" you say. "Why'd you leave me for so long in this lifetime, then?" 

H: It's the kind of night where the words just spill out, easy, without you even knowing where they come from. "I found you, didn't I," you say, seriously.

L: "That you did," you tell him. "Glad you did." You bury your nose in his curls (johnsons baby shampoo, no tears) and he turns, to face you. His face is shadowed, but his eyes are bright.

H: "I'll find you in all the lifetimes," you promise, and that's when his eyes crinkle, and there's a palm on your cheek. That's when he leans forward, eyes questioning, and that's when you meet him halfway. 

L: He kisses you like he's found you, like he's still searching. His lips are so soft. His mouth is wet and warm. He's - he's smiling, under the press of your lips. You dip a finger into where you know a dimple is. You love him slow and endless and deep, aeons-old.

(mine?)

H: You love him galaxies and sunsets and moonbeams, universes-wide.

(yours. always yours.)

:::

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. the book harry finds does not exist, but the poems do: Interim by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and The Orange by Wendy Cope.
> 
> 2\. continued from beginning notes: 
> 
> ...what i do know is, louis and harry? they're the definition of soulmates. idk if they'll get their happily ever after in this life. i pray they do. i hope they sort shit out and realise nothing's more important than each other. but i do know they'll find each other again. i do know that this has always been meant to be. if i know one thing, i do know that louis and harry's love story, it was written in the stars. 
> 
> 3\. also!! i recommend y'all delete don't let me go, still the one, and look after you off of your wherever. they were the soundtrack to this fic, shit punched a hole through my soul.


End file.
